The Hawaiian gazette., 1887-03-22
Notes on the Recent Eruption.
REV. E. P. BAKER GIVES SOME POINTS.

EDITOR GAZETTE: The 1887 lava flow from
Mauna Loa Island of Hawaii, has brought
10 the attention of all careful observers GER
tain facts, which, inadequate data for the
establishment of any new principle, do yet
furnish food for thought to those who have
an appetite Gor such food.
l. The apparently weak place in the noun
tainside, where the molten lava of the late flow,
(both the upper and lower outcropplng OF
it,, broke through to the surface-Hale Po-
haha, the point of the lower, and Pele Ka-
huku of the upper emergence to the surface
of the LIQUID fire, being localities, where very
ancient aa meets the view of the beholder.
IA SO ancient, as to have been changed by
disintegration, into a substance resembling
friable brick and brick dust, showing (as
that disintegrated "a seemed to the present
writer to dol; that a reIy, rery long time had
elapsed since that particular area OF the
mountain had been coated with layer Of
fresh lava, and strengthened and helped thus
to resist the upward pressure of subterranean
forces struggling to make way through
from beneath.
II. The fact that the 1881, along with the 1852
and 1868 lava streams, broke out low down and
ran for only comparatively short periods of
time-(14, p and 5 days being the respective
eruption periods) suggesting the query
whether the lower-down volcanic outbreaks
do not run faster, and the higher-up out
breaks, slower.
III. The connection, Undoubtedly casual
onel, subsisting between the passage of lava
streams through subterranean channels, and
the occurrance, in the region, and at the time OF
such passage, of numerous and violent earth
ouakes-1S6S and 1887, pointing certainly to
such a connection.
~. The fact, that, given two localities,
each equally near to, or distant from the
center and source of the dIsturbance-one
and the same earthquake will be often times,
heavy in the one, and light in the other, or
vice versa. The late earthquakes having
been heavier in Kapapala than In kahuku,
and heaviest of all in Muolu Valley, where
one house was thrown feet-the phenome-
non in question suggesting the query whether
the rock and soil underlying some localities,
does not constitute sort of cushioning or
buffer-apparatus TO these localities.
V. The certainty that the big boulders
found in aa streams are formed by accretion.
Scum-pahoehoe floating on the surface of a
lava stream that is running al, catching
against, and building on to huge masses OF
aa and so smoothing and rounding those
| masses into boulders.
VI. The probability that no theory of the
aa, as yet preached, is wholly satisfactory
La contains per cent. more of iron than
pahoehoe contains: Mr.. Morrison of Haka
| Iau has lately ascertained this, by exact
chemical ANALYSIS. Mr.. Ms. figures affirm
! ing pahoehoe to have in it 10 per cent. OF
! iron, and aa 20 per cent: and this along with
certain other rather enigmatical facts per
| tanning to the substance IN question, have
| led the present writer to surmlse that 1t viii
| require a rather complex formula to state
! the causes which make the difference be
1 tween ga and pahoehoe. ED. L. BAKER.